Title The SwarmAuthor Brutti ma buoniRating PGWord Count 300Prompt 198 Free for all: lunch, snack, breakfastCharacters/Pairing (if any) Angel, and a lot of SlayersA/N: after Chosen and Home, Angel's world is changing fast. He's a little fuddled by this.

The foyer of the Hyperion looked unusual. Gone was that blissful sense of gloomy solitude that Angel so enjoyed when life got busy. No space to wander his hallways, thinking of what he had sacrificed for Connor's sake, and wondering how the Wolfram and Hart deal would go bad.

Not just Gunn and Fred chatting today, nor Wes researching as though he'd never been gone. (Angel had whiplash from doing double takes on that one). Not even Lorne in full diva mode. Today, there were dozens of girls in his hotel. Strong girls, born to slay his kind. Wounded, blood-oozing girls, padded with gauze, splinted with whatever could be found. Being, in some cases, revived with packs of human blood got from who knew where. Tasty blood, wasted on these human girls. But he wasn't going to think about that.

Buffy, Giles and a bunch of other ex-Sunnydale faces were spread on the couch, conferring. Sunnydale gone, they needed a new base, fast. (Angel was really hoping it wouldn't be here.) Strategic positioning was discussed. Resource deployment. Squad patterns. This wasn't the Scooby gang he remembered. Buffy had brought an army to his home.

An army requiring feeding. The hotel kitchens would cater for a thousand, but no one was volunteering to take kitchen duty.

Angel crossed the foyer, to the first of the very confused pizza delivery guys. He had practiced on the burger guys earlier. He tried to look reassuring. "Not a prank. Thank you!"

One hundred and twenty six pizzas made their way into the hotel that night. None remained for the morning. The next day was taco day. Also pancakes.

Angel had been wrong. Buffy hadn't brought an army; she'd brought a plague of locusts.

He felt a little sorry for Scotland, when the Slayers chose it as their base.

“All the baby slayers tucked away?” Faith looked up from the table full of planning documents.

Anya slumped down on a chair opposite. “Pretty much. There was a small rebellion over bathroom precedence, but it was quelled with some negotiations over mouthwash which I don‘t want to go into. This loco parentis thing sucks.” Faith rolled her eyes in agreement.

“Also: responsibility for life and death of dozens of kids? Not fun. Can we talk about something else?” Faith’s desperation was convincing, but her first cast was a bad one. “So, vengeance demon. Got to be some cool stories there?”

Anya looked down at her fingernails. “I’m not proud of it. Not anymore. Well, sometimes, maybe…” She looked up and recited, “But it is inappropriate for me to express satisfaction at the brutality I inflicted.”

This didn‘t sit too well with Faith. “Yeah, but real assholes. Gotta be satisfying to squish ‘em?” Anya resolutely failed to respond to this open invitation. Faith, twitchily moving away from the table, eventually broke the pause with a half-change of subject.

“So, you did some pretty impressive stuff I hear. Do the powers just…happen? No magic messing? They wish and that’s it?”

“Yep, snap your fingers and it happens. Feels like crap, mind you. All that power gushing through you, your veins and guts and pores, it’s like…like a scourer.”

Faith’s face was a picture. “Great image. Gross image.”

“Appropriate image. It took a few years of humanity to recognise the effect, but it took little bits of me away, every time I granted a wish. It got to the point where I‘m not sure there was any of the real me left… I imagine you might have an idea what that feels like.”

Anya held Faith’s gaze for a long moment, before the Slayer broke the connection. “Gotta talk to Giles. Get this plan nailed down.”

She made it almost to the kitchen door before turning back. “Yeah. I know what you mean. So it’s payback time, right? But I can’t think about that now.”

Anya watched the empty doorway for a while after Faith left. That girl needs some serious help, still. But it’ll have to wait till after the fight.